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Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Reproductions

In his book for aspiring oil painters, Yamamoto Kanae, an oil painter himself, provided the following advice:

Another method to study painting is to see as many paintings as possible. I suggest going to exhibitions or, if one has an invitation, visiting ateliers of acquainted painters or those who live in the neighborhood. Above all, to work in oil painting, one has to see a lot of pictures by noted western artists. However, unless one travels to the West, it is impossible to see the original artworks. For this reason I advise to collect many photographic reproductions of famous works. Yamamoto Kanae, Aburae no egakikata (Yamamoto 1919, 38).

Writing in 1919, Yamamoto Kanae emphasizes the importance of perusing photographic reproductions at a time when access to original works (in this case oil paintings produced in the West) was limited.

Similarly, an observer writing for the Taiwan nichinichi shinpō in November 1930 advised artists in the tōyōga division of the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition to study old paintings in private collections and by using the library. He pointed out that the Taipei library had the full run of the prestigious journal Kokka (Flowers of the Nation), twenty-volume set of Shinbi taikan (Selected Relics of Japanese Art), and many other books with reproductions (gashū) of works from various painting schools (Hekiteishujin 1930). Both Kokka and Shinbi taikan featured large size reproductions in highest print quality.

Another important medium that provided reproductions were art postcards. Sold at major art exhibitions, they enjoyed great popularity throughout the 1920s and 1930s with exhibition visitors and aspiring artists. In contrast to primarily black and white reproductions in art journals, the art postcards from major exhibitions in Japan at the time were printed in color, which greatly contributed to their appeal. Art postcards turned artworks into small, uniform, inexpensive, yet visually pleasant collectibles. They were easily transportable and allowed anyone to assemble a small “art collection.” Painter and exhibition juror Okada Saburōsuke (1869-1939) stated that since there was no permanent museum for modern art in Tokyo and art exhibitions were “temporary just like music,” only art postcards would help one to recall the artworks they had earlier seen in an exhibition (“Jōsetsu bijutsukan no mondai” 1933, 6). Also, artists used art postcards to promote their own work and exchange with their colleagues (Kolodziej 2020).

Many artists collected art postcards and made scrapbooks with reproductions of artworks. Today, some of the most well known extant examples of such collections belong to a Korean watercolor and oil artist Yi Insŏng (1912-1950) and two Taiwanese-Chinese oil painters, Chen Chengbo (1895-1947) and Chen Zhiqi (1906-1931). Yi Insŏng's art postcard collection was on display at the National Museum of Contemporary Art as part of “The Centennial Celebration of Lee In-Sung's Birth” exhibition in 2012. You can see a few art postcards from Chen Chengbo's collection on this page. To view the whole collection visit the Chen Cheng-po Cultural Foundation's website.

The growing availability and access to reproductions helped foster a shared knowledge of a vast set of images in Japan and across its empire. Yet, if the printing technology democratized access to art, the publishing industry retained a selective focus on art considered worthy of reproduction, highlighting contemporary art on display at major art exhibitions in Japan, masterpieces of Western art, and Japanese scholarship on the great works from the East Asian past.

To learn more more generally about postcards in Japan, visit the Leonard A. Lauder Collection at the MFA Boston and the East Asia Image Collection at Lafayette University.

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Guo Xuehu's Prize-winning Essay 52 Taiwan Government-General Library; Taiwan nichinichi shinpō; Xie Yonghua plain 2021-10-04T17:14:17-04:00 25.0383, 121.5641 Taipei 25.04086, 121.51122 25.04537, 121.52253 1927-1932 Magdalena Kolodziej Taiwan Government-General Library Kabayama Elementary School, location of the first Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition Guo Xuehu Taipei Fine Arts Museum
In December 1931, the twenty three-year old Guo Xuehu submitted an essay in Japanese to a contest organized by the Taiwan Government-General Library, in which he extolled the benefits of library use for aspiring artists. (You can find English translation here.) The library staff was well aware of his professional path and may have well encouraged him to participate in this contest.
In the essay, Guo Xuehu describes the development of his professional career as a painter and the difficulties he encountered in achieving the two credentials necessary to become a professional artist:
1. acquiring art education;
2. and, receiving social recognition through exhibition participation.
Guo's successful if unexpected acceptance to the first Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition launched his career in 1927 at the very young age of nineteen. Yet, a one-time success was not enough. He needed to prove himself as an artist of true ability by securing admission of his works to the salon in the following years. In this pivotal moment, he turned to the Government-General Library for art education.
The essay highlights the importance of looking at art as part of artistic training. First, Guo Xuehu explains how he became a scroll mounter to “come in touch with great paintings.” Second, he details how he was able to look at many artworks in reproduction at the library, including those in special collections (tokubetsusho):
…I looked mostly at books featuring new Eastern Painting (atarashii tōyōga), read about painting theory, copied old masterpieces, and studied new painting techniques.
While the essay does not reveal in detail the names of artists whose works he was looking at so carefully, scholars have suggested (perhaps based on later interviews with the artist) that he had studied acclaimed works of artists in Japan active during the Meiji and Taishō periods, as well as masterpieces of Chinese painting from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties (Taipei Fine Arts Museum 1989, 17). Access to paintings, whether in original or in reproduction, facilitated copying and acquiring the knowledge of painting techniques. The practice was not new. Yet, the advent of public exhibitions and an increase in the quality of reproductions expanded access to art to a larger number of aspiring artists, who lacked affiliation to established ateliers or art schools.
Guo Xuehu's essay won the second prize in the contest and was published alongside the first prize winning essay in the major Japanese-language newspaper in Taiwan, Taiwan nichinichi shinpō, in January 1932. The first prize went to an entrepreneur Xie Yonghe. Both winners were Taiwanese-Chinese men in their twenties with modest family backgrounds, who attributed their professional success to their persistent library use and expressed themselves fluently in Japanese. Their respective essays paint a very positive image of the library, and by extension of the colonial government. Both essays suggest that the users discovered the library in a seemingly serendipitous manner and that the library transformed their lives by providing them with instruction and access to information, which they were otherwise unable to obtain.
Guo Xuehu is an unusual case of an artist who achieved prominence and a longstanding professional success without attending an art school or affiliating with an established artist. His insistence on the importance of looking at art and striving towards professional recognition at the official salon suggest emergence of shared practices and assumptions about artistic professionalization Japan and Taiwan. Moreover, Guo's interest in older Chinese art overlapped with those of many Japanese artists, who mined the artistic pasts of East Asia for a mode of expression suitable to the modern times (see also Wong 2006).
Exhibition Catalogues and Books with Reproductions
Exhibition catalogues extended the life of the exhibition beyond its temporal frame and site. Taiwan Government-General Library had in its collection all the annual catalogues of the official salon in Tokyo, the Ministry of Education Fine Arts Exhibition and its successor, the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition. Also, the library acquired a copy of the Dai 13 kai Chōsen bijutsu tenrankai zuroku (Thirteenth Korea Fine Arts Exhibition catalogue, 1934), bringing the colonized Korean art world closer to the art interested readers in Taiwan.
Similarly, books with reproductions (gashū) served as reference material for aspiring artists. One such important source available at the Taiwan Government-General Library was the twenty-volume set of Shinbi taikan (Selected relics of Japanese art), published between 1899-1908 by Shinbi shoin. A true tour de force of printing skills, this extensive oversize publication featured black and white photographs (collotypes) of highest quality by Ogawa Kazumasa as well as multi-color woodblock print reproductions of selected artworks in Japanese temples and private collections from the earliest times until the Tokugawa period. Each reproduced artwork was accompanied by a one-page explanatory text of iconographic analysis in Japanese and in English. The series laid the foundations for research on Japanese art and its success depended on collaboration between the private and the government sector facilitated through its founder, Tajima Shiichi (1868-1924) (Satō 2011, 159).
Somewhat contrary to the title, the selection included also Chinese artworks. The English preface to the first volume was penned by an American art historian of Japanese art Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908). In this text, he compares Japanese art to Italian art and by focusing on artworks held by Buddhist temples makes an argument for the importance of Japanese art to a Western readership. Also, he suggests that Japan was a custodian “of ancient masterpieces of Oriental art.” This idea was promoted by the writings of Okakura Kakuzō (also known as Tenshin, 1863-1913), an influential scholar and curator of Japanese art, and would be taken up after his death by cultural nationalists in the 1930s.
Shinbi taikan's high quality of printing cannot be overstated. Yes, it is true that books with reproductions were only imperfect vehicles. Books distorted the sense of scale and could only approximate the true color and texture of artworks. The publishers of Shinbi taikan dealt with these issues by using the new technology of the collotype to their advantage when reproducing three dimensional works and ink painting. Then, they utilized the existing expertise of woodblock print makers to recreate colored paintings through woodblock printing, recreating color effects of the golden leaf and all details such as stains or minor damage to the painting surface. While a careful observer will recognize the flat-like quality of color applied characteristic of a woodblock print, the quality of each reproduction was astonishing. (On the use of printing technology in reproducing artwork in China see: Liu 2014.) Moreover, the practice itself recalled earlier painting manuals from the Tokugawa period, which were also printed through woodblocks and widely used by artists.
Books served as vehicles and the library as an infrastructure, connecting the art world of Taiwan to that in the Japan. The advancements of photography and the high quality of woodblock printing helped facilitate circulation of images and the making of artistic canons. As there was no art school established in Taiwan, options for aspiring artists were limited. The library provided artistic knowledge in book form and the opportunity view quality reproductions of artworks. ;At the same time, its selection of books prioritized Japanese language publications and its categorization schema centered art canons made in Japan.
Art-related Collections
Books and other printed media served as vehicles within Japan's imperial art world, transporting the knowledge of artistic practices, artworks, and the art milieu itself throughout the empire. The art-related books available in the public libraries constituted the most informal level of artistic education, available to anyone with some Japanese language skills. Authors of advice books and critics encouraged aspiring artists to look at artworks and visit the library. Although learning from books alone would not make one an artist, it kindled the imagination of young readers and provided access to reproductions.
By March 1939, the Arts section of the Taiwan Government-General Library had 6,450 volumes, 199 in western languages and 6,251 in Japanese and Chinese (Taiwan Sōtokufu Toshokan 1939, 3). The fine arts related chunk of the collection covered topics ranging from pre-modern to modern art in Japan, China, and the West, yet was especially strong in Japanese art. In addition, some of the Japanese language books in the collection were recent translations from European languages, for example: John Ruskin's Lectures on Art (originally published in 1870; translated by Sakuma Masakazu, Geijutsu kōwa, 1924), Konrad Adolf Fiedler's Über den Ursprung der Künstlerischen Tätigkeit (originally published in 1887; translated by Kaneda Sunao, Geijutsuteki katsudō no kigen, 1921), or Ascanio Condivi's Biography of Michaelangelo (translated by Takata Hiroatsu, 1922; originally from 1553).
Furthermore, the collection of the Taiwan Government-General Library featured many books relevant for amateurs and aspiring artists, such as exhibition catalogues, books with reproductions (gashū), and a large selection of how-to-make-art and how-to-look-at-art books. It also had books about contemporary masters in Europe and Japan, including essays and memoirs penned directly by the artists.
Guo Xuehu emphasized this self-study-oriented and comprehensive character of the library collection in an article from 1955, in which he described his debut as an artist (English translation from Lin 2008, 26):
…[the library] could be a better solution comparing with any other schools since it offers rich collections of specific books for a self-study student… People usually give compliments to the alma mater or praise the great personality of their teachers, and even exaggerate the times spent abroad for research. If all these can raise their social status, I would like to mention my school library that contains dozens of thousands of people [sic].
Art Journals 27 Kokka; Bijutsu gahō; Nihon bijutsu; model works plain 2021-10-04T17:26:39-04:00 25.0383, 121.5641 Taipei 25.04086, 121.51122 11/1930 Magdalena Kolodziej Taiwan Government-General Library Okakura Tenshin Takahashi Kenzō
Taiwan Government-General Library carried three art journals in Japanese:
- Kokka (Flowers of the nation, from the very first issue, 1889-, including accompanying indexes);
- Nihon bijutsu (Japanese art, vol 17 no 3-6, 1915-1916);
- and, Bijutsu gahō (The magazine of art, from volume 33 1915 onward) (Taiwan Sōtokufu Toshokan 1918, 758).
This selection underscores the educational approach of the library, as both Kokka and Bijutsu gahō were the two major art journals at the time specializing in reproducing artworks.
Kokka is particularly famous for the high quality of its reproductions, both black and white photographs (collotypes) and multi-color woodblock prints. Founded by Okakura Tenshin and Takahashi Kenzō, this prestigious journal also published research on East Asian art and would become one of the pillars of Japanese art history (Satō 2004, 221-24; Satō 2011, 153-55). In November 1930, an observer writing for the Taiwan nichinichi shinpō pointed out that the library had the full run of Kokka and encouraged artists from the tōyōga division at the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition to visit the library and peruse it (Hekiteishujin 1930).
Bijutsu gahō consisted primarily of reproductions, grouped under one of the two categories:
1. sankōhin, which the magazine translated into English as “works of old masters or masterpieces” (which I translate throughout this module as “model works”);
2. and, shinseihin, “works of living/contemporary artists.”
The editors put all deceased artists into the first category, irrespective of when they had passed. The second category featured often paintings on view at major contemporary art exhibitions in Japan, such as the Japan Art Association exhibit or the Fine Arts Exhibition organized by the Ministry of Education. The bilingual notice inside of the magazine explained its objectives:
The Magazine of Art has for its object the publication through its pages such standard works of old and new art, as it will serve for models of excellence an [sic] examples for reference in the various departments of art, for the benefit of the students and other persons wishing to acquaint themselves with the condition of Art in the Far East (Bijutsu gahō 1909, n. p).
The editors also included reproductions of some premodern artworks from the Asian continent preserved in collections in Japan. Yet, overall, art produced in Japan dominated the magazine.
By the 1920s, art journals began to appear as a motif on a number of still lifes on display at the official salons in Korea and Taiwan.

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